production of certain plays spurred discontent and attempted sabotage amongst the puritans, which deemed them "immoral".

1580 endeavor by Mayor of London to close the Theaters was deterred by the Privy Council, citing her Royal Majesty´s fondness for plays.

the queens approbatory opinion of theatre precipitated the amelioration of its notoriety amongst the Commoners.

engendered the implementation of drama as a subject into most of the sophisticated boys´ schools.

Elizabethan Theatre

Stagecraft

Soliloquies

Asides

Masques

Eavesdropping

Presentational Acting Style

histrionic dialogues

play-within-a-play

Production Process

approbation by a company was a prerequisite

certain characters & parts were composed for specific actors

notable personalities

Elizabethan era engendered an array of influencial artists, the most acclaimed of whom include:

Christopher Marlowe (playwright)

Edmund Spenser (poet)

Francis Bacon (philosopher)

many artists at the time enjoyed the patronage of members of the elizabethan court.

Elizabeth´s influence on Shakespeare

taking a position vis-á-vis the woman monarch was mandatory at the time.

the Queen, as a contemporary, epitomized a new feminity, marked by a stalwart autonomy

though less conspicuous than some of his counterparts (i.e Spenser in his Faerie Queene), Shakespeare did incorporate the Queens persona into his works. shakespearean plays alluding to Elizabeth include:

Rosalind and Viola

As You Like It

Twelfth Night

Shakespeare´s influence on Elizabethan Culture

intellectuals such as Shakespeare were abhored by the middle class, as they feared the lower class to errupt in vice and umbrage in response to the delicate content of the plays.

for the first time in England the illiterate class was granted access to the arts, which up until that point had remained a prerequisite of the affluent.

Elizabethan culture

Society was segregated into distinct groups, distinguished by social status and thus aflluence.

majority of "Commoners" were illiterate.

initially theatre was exclusively targeted at the erudite class.

girls were denied education, unless of aristocratic descent.

female characters were portrayed by young men, or adolescent boys.

no absolute grammar structure for the English language had been established at that time.